GOP keeps concocting Obama scandals

Monday

Jan 20, 2014 at 6:00 AM

By Clive McFarlane TELEGRAM & GAZETTE STAFF

It doesn't surprise me that Republicans who have been consumed with manufacturing scandals throughout President Barack Obama's presidency cannot recognize a real scandal, even as it threatens their 2016 presidential election ambitions.

As it has been widely reported, when the Democratic mayor of Fort Lee, N.J., refused to endorse New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie's re-election bid, the governor's administration restricted access to the George Washington Bridge from Fort Lee, creating a massive traffic jam for several days.

There is evidence that the bridge restriction was purposely implemented to punish the Fort Lee mayor for not endorsing Gov. Christie. This is a real scandal, unless you are a Republican.

In the midst of Gov. Christie's Bridgegate last week, for example, Republicans were still trying to suck a scandal through the stone teats they have attached to the 2012 attacks on the U.S diplomatic mission and CIA annex in Benghazi, Libya. Four Americans, including Ambassador Christopher Stevens, were killed in those attacks.

You might recall that in the early wake of the attacks, the White House suggested they were triggered by a spontaneous uprising over an American-made movie denigrating Islam's Prophet Muhammad.

Shortly after it was disclosed that elements of al-Qaida were involved, Republicans began charging the president with using the "spontaneous uprising" explanation to protect his re-election chances.

Republicans subsequently launched a number of congressional hearings and investigations to push their conspiracy theory. The Senate intelligence committee last week released a report on its Benghazi investigation. It concluded that the deaths of Americans in the attacks were preventable, and it detailed a number of failures by the state department and the intelligence community.

It found, for example, that the Pentagon did not have enough military assets in the region to appropriately respond to the attack, and that while the CIA, in the weeks leading up to the attack, beefed up the security at an annex it operated in the city, Ambassador Stevens rejected a senior military leader's offer of additional support at the diplomatic mission.

The report found no cover-up by the White House. White House staff had essentially parroted what they were hearing from the intelligence community.

You would think Republicans would be chastened by the collapse of their cover-up conspiracy. Instead, they pivoted, shifting their focus from President Obama to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who they view as a formidable presidential candidate in 2016.

"At the end of the day, she (Clinton) was responsible for ensuring the safety of all Americans serving in our diplomatic facilities. Her failure to do so clearly made a difference in the lives of the four murdered Americans and their families," Republican members of the Senate Intelligence committee wrote in the report.

Perhaps the most sinister part of the Republicans' fascination with the Benghazi attacks is the gulf between their rhetoric and their deeds. They have consistently reduced spending on embassy security, construction and maintenance since gaining the majority in the House and increasing their seats in the Senate, following the 2010 elections.

In the spending plan, developed by House and Senate negotiators, and passed by the Senate last week, spending on embassy security, construction and maintenance was cut by $224 million.